


Musings on Karen Chance's series

by Carradee



Series: Musings [1]
Category: Cassandra Palmer Series - Karen Chance, Dorina Basarab Series - Karen Chance
Genre: Essays, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-02-19 02:10:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22136851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carradee/pseuds/Carradee
Summary: Non-fiction essays digging into implications I spot in Karen Chance's world.Discussion welcome. Just be aware I'm the technical sort who tracks logical fallacies. :-)
Series: Musings [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1593376
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6





	1. Dory thinks the consul and Marlowe want rid of her ASAP, but…

**Author's Note:**

> Through this work, I use “Dorina” in the series-usual sense, but insofar as I remember and have been able to track down upon rereading relevant sections, the twin has only ever said she isn’t Dory and hasn’t actually called herself Dorina. If she’s a second person—which is possible in multiple ways, at this point, including a possibility that Mircea might’ve not been entirely human to begin with—that might not be her name. I’m not saying she's definitely a second person with another name, just acknowledging the possibility.

Anyone else notice that Marlowe and the consul might actually be intentionally **helping** Mircea/Cassie/Dory and seeking to change vampire culture (and possibly the magical community in general) for the better?

In _Masks_ , the consul starts out a senator. She seems rather unhappy, and challenges the reigning consul only when she has no other option for her people’s safety. Once she realizes how young, weak, and ignorant Mircea is, she goes out of her way to educate and protect him.

In the modern-day stories, Marlowe more often takes that role. If you pay attention to what he _actually_ does and says—not the interpretations of those actions by the narrator and sometimes other characters—Marlowe is very much explanation central and incredibly considerate. He even bothers to pay attention to people’s preferences when assigning jobs. (See when he approaches Dory for help in _Lover’s Knot_.)

If anything, that “explanation central” is what causes a lot of Marlowe’s altercations with others, because he’s remarkably honest in general. (See _Lover’s Knot_ , again; his forthright answer to Elise, the European spy, about why he’d like to know who her master is—which itself makes me wonder where his female servants _are_ and what they’re doing, because the stories have only shown the male ones, but that’s another topic altogether.)

Now, if the consul truly had it out for Mircea, as is “common knowledge” in _Reap the Wind_ , would Marlowe be educating and protecting Mircea’s people? Why does she herself even bother to provide explanations, when she has discreet opportunity? Even just protecting Dory has cost Marlowe quite a bit of resources. He’s lost a _lot_ of people, in line of fire for her and with her.

(I also find it interesting that Dory overall seems to return home in much better health from situations where _Marlowe_ is helping her vs. ones where Mircea or Louis-Cesaré are helping her, which suggests he might respect her capabilities better than they do and thus doesn’t sabotage her via meddling as much as they do.)

The consul also takes advantage of every opportunity given them to actually _strengthen_ non-vampires’ positions in the vampire community. When Mircea names Cassie his second in _Embrace the Night_ , even though she isn’t a vampire and _is_ a member of another of another magical community (so…divided loyalties), the consul respects that. When Dory and/or Dorina gives the consul opportunity to honor her, the consul grabs it with both hands—even and perhaps especially when it’s to the shame of actual vampires—and showcases her as a valuable member of the community.

The consul has changed vampire culture and the shape of the magical community before, back in _Masks_. Might she be seeking to do it again?

And then there’s how the consul and Marlowe ignore, overlook, or otherwise outright hide various offenses that they could easily leverage against Mircea & co. Like when Cassie set Marlowe on fire in _Embrace the Night_ , or in _Fury’s Kiss_ when Dorina freaks out and Louis-Cesaré defies the consul _in public_. Even when Dory was projecting her confused rambles while the consul was trying to give her a senate seat, the consul even adjusted her speech while in the middle of delivering it, reducing the opportunity for Dory to make a fool of herself.

In the very least, that doesn’t look to me as if the consul and Marlowe want rid of Dory and/or Dorina once the war’s up. If anything, they seem to actively want her/them as an ally.

This also fits with Marlowe telling his guys to protect her in _Death’s Mistress_ , when he still believes she’s manipulating her family and admits outright that he only cares about her safety while her father’s on-site—why would he put his people on _protecting_ her off-site unless the consul wanted him to? Her father wasn’t there. Marlowe didn’t _have_ to order his men “to assist _and protect_ ” her…unless that order came from higher up. Left to his own devices, he only had reason to leave it at ‘assist’.

Even the consul’s treatment of Dory in _Death’s Mistress_ , seeking to trigger a fit, is just basic ally-testing, to ensure they can stand on their own, that they won’t be liabilities. Moreover, all the consul’s tests of Dory’s control—done discreetly, with minimal witnesses—are prodding for information that’s outright _necessary_ for everyone’s safety but she can’t trust Mircea to accurately understand or report. What if Dory were weak enough that a foreign agent or other enemy could set off a very confused Dorina, if Mircea isn’t available to control her? Does Dorina have a hair-trigger temper, or can she be trusted to keep her cool when provoked?

Even the forcible waking of Dorina in _Ride the Storm_ could be understood as forcing Mircea to fill Cassie in, to outright _strengthen_ the bond between them. After all, the consul probably knows that Cassie’s been assuming Mircea has a mistress, and she probably would’ve realized who Cassie was confused about—and recognized that Cassie was therefore a threat to Dory and Dorina both. She did emphasize “daughter” when she said it, in front of Cassie.

So, judging from her actual words and actions, the consul doesn’t actually hate Dory or Cassie…and frankly, Marlowe doesn’t, either.

Ultimately, Marlowe’s “anger” and “hatred” (as alleged by the unreliable narrator) reads to me as frustration, confusion—he gets sharp when seeking explanations. This is completely normal for someone who grew up in the type of family background he’s established as having had in _Zombie’s Bite_ —and that free novella outright indicates he had a personality disorder or trauma issues as a human, too. (See his mention of never having processing emotion normally, connected with some black humor.) When you grow up in a family where ignorance and confusion are actively dangerous, precursors to actual harm, ignorance and confusion are massive anxiety triggers.

This non-hatred of Dory has admittedly been a shift from where the series started. Marlowe originally seemed convinced Dory was like her uncle Vlad (e.g., “I know what you are!” in _Fury’s Kiss_ ), and the hatred was probably legitimate then (though he still bothered to provide explanations when needed, which is itself interesting). But his view of her changed, and Dory’s interpretation hasn’t, even after he starts demonstrating upset about how she’s treated (e.g., calling Louis-Cesaré a “gorilla”* in _Shadow’s Bane_ , after the “We are going to bed!” thing). Marlowe got particularly obvious about the attitude change in _Dragon’s Claw_ ; the consul cut him off but did not contradict or sabotage him. (See when he points out Cheung attacked her first, then backpedals to include Cheung’s offense against his own person after witnesses notice his support as something weird.)

*(The “gorilla” comment seems a bit odd for Marlowe, and Dory herself has increasingly been comparing people to animals as Dorina’s gotten more active. This could be an intentional clue that the “gorilla” comparison originally came from Dorina. It also could just be the author growing her style and unintentionally mirroring tactics across characters, so please note that I am not saying that it’s necessarily significant. I’m just pointing out that it’s _potentially_ significant.)

So altogether, Marlowe looks to have been supporting Dory, either by his lady’s order or with her approval.

He also understands their relationship dynamic differently than Dory does, judging from his “It’s not your fault” to Dory in _Shadow’s Bane_ (see the physical fight) and his “I’m not in the mood tonight” in _Dragon’s Claw_ (see beginning).

Then there’s how some of what the consul and Marlowe do outright protects _Dorina_ , specifically. The most blatant example is in _Shadow’s Bane_ , where when even _Dory_ thinks Dorina is going to try to kill the consul, _neither Marlowe nor the consul respond accordingly_. Marlowe even shoots Dory, actively _preventing_ her from stopping Dorina. When Dorina thinks that she could actually kill the consul, if she timed it right, the consul doesn’t take it as a threat—which, if she were actually _afraid_ of Dorina or what Mircea was planning with his power base, you’d expect her to do.

If Marlowe were truly trying to stop Dory, why did the Senate guards—the consul’s people—attack his? He and the consul aren’t just servant and master; they’re bosom buddies. Mircea’s called them very similar in personality before.

Even if there had been a communication breakdown and neither master vampire realized they were at cross purposes until the first punch was thrown, they would’ve communicated as soon as that happened. If the fight between them had been anything other than a show, the consul should’ve immediately put an end to that, whether by ordering him to stop or by having her people assist his. Letting it play out was ultimately showing various allies that there was contention in the Senate and suggesting weakness, vulnerability, on the consul’s part—a major liability that she surely wouldn’t have permitted without some sort of larger big-picture goal in mind.

And when the consul has opportunity to ‘accidentally’ kill Dory and Dorina, she instead takes extra precautions to ensure that they _won’t_ be ‘accidents’. Even in _Ride the Storm_ , when Dorina goes after Cassie…they told Mircea to slow her down, to _sabotage_ how well Dorina could fight—which is helping her hide how powerful she is (which in turn helps Mircea hide his own power), and they had every reason to believe Cassie could handle the situation without trouble.

Back in _Shadow’s Bane_ again, when Dory’s bothering Marlowe, he outright tells her to “go plague the consul”—which suggests that the consul would actually let Dory do that. When the consul asks to speak to Dorina and Dory says it doesn’t work like that, even Dory recognizes the the consul’s “And how does it work?” as a warning—a warning that evaporates when Dory states that Dorina acts autonomously as she sees fit, and the consul then essentially goes “Okay” and ensures that Dorina gets in a position to make an autonomous decision. (And, in that scene, her people _also_ reinforced Mircea’s privacy barrier for Dory’s conversation with her father.)

When the fey queen then attacks Dory and her father tries to help her, he burns through his power, and then the Senate’s power comes in. In other words, the consul brought the Senate in _after_ Mircea showed the limits of his power—and isn’t that “check that a potential ally can do” parallel to when the consul tested Cassie’s power in _Embrace the Night_?

The consul is definitely trying to get a sense of how powerful Mircea truly is, and she’s probably testing Dorina in part as a yardstick for gauging that. (After all, he’s demonstrated himself as stronger, if only just.)

But the entire premise that she’s out to get Mircea just screams “misdirection” to me. Common knowledge is commonly wrong, and both the consul and Marlowe have demonstrated themselves as acutely aware of that and as willing to manipulate that.

So what are they misdirecting from? We readers don’t know yet.

I can see a few possibilities, myself. I suspect they’re playing a layered game, where Mircea knows part of it and thinks that’s it, but I don’t think he knows all of it, because…

Well, they’ve effectively confirmed that he has sufficient power to run a Senate himself but lacks the ability to be ruthless with his family (see when the consul tested Dory in _Death’s Mistress_ ), and the way the consul has been reacting to things like meeting the demon council suggests she’s outright _bored_.

Maybe the consul is looking for someone she can trust to take over the North American Senate.

Aside from how Mircea ending up in charge of a Senate himself could help save him from himself (due to his particular obsession), his family situation—wife, daughter, grandson—would initiate further progression in vampire culture, comparable in some ways to what she and Antony enacted when _they_ took power.

But Mircea has demonstrated that he doesn’t want power to that degree—he wants power for the sake of protecting his family, not to make a target of it—so he wouldn’t willingly play along with that game. Thus, if Mircea isn’t actually aware of the consul’s “big picture” end play, it’s plausible that she’s navigating for him to end up a consul, himself, maybe even replacing her. (Maybe just on the North American level, while she tries to maintain the World Senate after the war.)

But if the entire end game _is_ something he’s aware of and assisting with, then it seems likely that the consul’s seeking the culture change itself, possibly out of awareness of the factors that triggered the current war. The desperation that’s enabled the consul to make unprecedented alliances and political positioning (ex. Dory on the North American Senate) also puts her in a position to start angling to prevent a second war of the underdogs after they take care of the god issue.

This is all one fan’s mulling on possibilities, potentially supported but not definitively proven one way or the other per what’s been released to date. Karen Chance has admitted that she uses unreliable narrators, so it’s not stretching to assume at least some of these details are intentional, on her part. I’m looking forward to finding out which are.

What about y’all?


	2. WHICH Basarab is chief enforcer for the Vampire World Senate?

Is the consul’s command, making the assignment of chief enforcer, explicitly on the page somewhere?

All I’m seeing that definitively says _Mircea_ is chief enforcer is gossip (see _Ride the Storm_ ), which has been wrong before (e.g., the nature of Louis-Cesaré’s relationship with Christine [ _Death’s Mistress_ ]).

Even in _Siren's Song_ , if you remove interruptions, Betty says “Dorina ‘Dory’ Basarab. Newly appointed member of the North American Vampire Senate […] trueborn daughter of Lord Mircea Basarab, currently Chief Enforcer of the Vampire World Senate […] and designated liaison to the fey.”

This might not be obvious unless you’re well versed in grammar, but those points of interruption are _precisely_ where punctuation would affect meaning, if the interruptions weren’t overriding the relevant grammar rules.

  * If Mircea’s Chief Enforcer:
    * Dorina ‘Dory’ Basarab. Newly appointed member of the North American Vampire Senate, trueborn daughter of Lord Mircea Basarab[—]currently Chief Enforcer of the Vampire World Senate[—]and designated liaison to the fey.”
    * Dorina ‘Dory’ Basarab. Newly appointed member of the North American Vampire Senate[. T]rueborn daughter of Lord Mircea Basarab, currently Chief Enforcer of the Vampire World Senate[. A]nd designated liaison to the fey.
  * If Dorina’s Chief Enforcer:
    * Dorina ‘Dory’ Basarab. Newly appointed member of the North American Vampire Senate[,] trueborn daughter of Lord Mircea Basarab, currently Chief Enforcer of the Vampire World Senate[] and designated liaison to the fey.
    * Dorina ‘Dory’ Basarab. Newly appointed member of the North American Vampire Senate[,] trueborn daughter of Lord Mircea Basarab, currently Chief Enforcer of the Vampire World Senate[,] and designated liaison to the fey.



And ‘give significant detail then distract!’ is a basic—and highly effective—misdirection tactic. (Seriously. It’s why burying the lede is such a bad thing in journalism. Burying the lede hinders notice, memory, and comprehension.)

The ambiguity _could_ be accidental or coincidental on the author's part, but Karen Chance has intentionally utilized misdirection before, and the placement is so optimal that assuming it's accidental would be kinda insulting to her.

And this would've been such an easy misdirection for the consul to make. All she had to do is name “Senator Basarab” her chief enforcer. Due to familiarity and history, folks would auto-think Mircea, even though it could also refer to Mircea, Dorina-as-combo, Dorina specifically, or Dory specifically.

Even if Mircea _is_ actually chief enforcer, such ambiguity would be useful as a political tool. I.e., if something happens to Mircea, the consul could claim she really meant that Dorina was chief enforcer, turning sabotage of her power base (due to being outmaneuvered) into something that strengthens it (due to outmaneuvering the attempted sabotage).

Having Dorina lead the invasion of Faerie would fit her expertise to some degree—even just in _Fury’s Kiss_ , she demonstrated an excellent capacity for slaughtering an enemy without them noticing her (see smugglers/slavers), surviving despite overwhelming odds (see zombies), keeping others alive in the process (see Ray), _and_ maintaining enough awareness of her surroundings even under high stress to utilize reciprocal force (see Senate guards trying to subdue her; she didn’t kill them, I expect because they weren’t trying to kill her).

Caedmon’s interest in acquiring Dory (and-or Dorina?) means Dorina-as-general would strengthen the alliance with the Blarestri fey, while Mircea-as-general might add tension…but Mircea’s still the one with experience as general, which is a detail in favor of him being in charge, not Dory or Dorina.

Dory’s friendships with the trolls and Claire-the-half-dragon fits well with any of the situations, as does the common vampire assumption that Dory and-or Dorina is Mircea’s lackey. Dory's gradual expansion of responsibilities and combat experience with vampire witnesses could be foreshadowing _or_ precursor to her capably leading a family.

And if the consul wants Dorina, Dory, or both to be her chief enforcer, then she would probably have to mislead Mircea in order to keep him from fighting the prospect—he has demonstrated that he _can’t_ be ruthless with his family, and the situation is desperate enough that the consul can’t afford to have him fight her if her optimal plan hinges on Dory and-or Dorina being the general.

So…have I overlooked something that definitively precludes that line in _Siren’s Song_ from being misdirection?

Note: Even if Karen Chance did intentionally set up that misdirection, that doesn't mean the common knowledge is wrong. It could've easily been an intentional distraction for people like me who notice this sort of thing.


	3. What *IS* Dorina? (Or Elena, for that matter?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I drafted this before the sample chapters for _Queen’s Gambit_ came out, but I have included thoughts on that, too.

**Regarding Dory & Dorina:**

The short version is that we readers don’t actually know what Dorina is yet, beyond the fact that she’s a distinct consciousness from Dory.

(Technically, we don’t even know that her name _is_ Dorina—I’ve gone back and double-checked, and I can only ever find her saying she isn’t Dory. I cannot ever find her calling herself Dorina. And if you check the situations where she’s most cooperative, she’s not actually addressed as Dorina there, even if the scene narrator describes her as Dorina. For clarity in this essay, though, I’ll just refer to her as Dorina.)

Karen Chance has adroitly juggled details so that it’s quite possible Dorina’s a dual nature like Claire’s dragon or Pritkin’s incubus, or a nature that was given full personhood by the fey bones used to make the wall, or a fully different person who was born in the same body, or…a few other more esoteric possibilities deriving from magical accidents that are far too complicated and convoluted for me to think them likely.

One particular detail in _Shadow’s Bane_ confirms that the duality of Dory + Dorina predates the wall: when Dorina tells Mircea that it’s only bad when they’re both awake.

Karen Chance explicitly called Dory and Dorina “both of Mircea’s daughters” on her blog (see [September 18, 2018](http://www.karenchance.com/news/q-and-a-65-shadows-bane/)), but that post was describing Mircea’s perspective for why he was seeking to imprison Dorina in _Shadow’s Bane_ and wasn’t necessarily literal.

Dorina demonstrates an interesting comfort with heights on multiple occasions, which Dory doesn’t share. This could be a side effect of some talent that Dory lacks knowledge of or access to—possibly the über-fast reflexes—but that doesn’t answer why Dorina has also been unbothered when Dory’s fallen from great heights ( _Fury’s Kiss_ , _Dragon’s Claw_ ).

(In the very least, Dorina’s casualness through most of _Dragon’s Claw_ does make clear that Dory is harder to kill than she thinks she is. Dorina also seems to be introducing Dory to her skills a bit at a time; e.g., how Dory has gotten progressively stronger as the wall’s come down, to the point that it might be one of her master’s talents, like it is Marlowe’s, and it’s unclear if Dorina shares it.)

None of that defines what they “both” are, precisely. I _think_ the evidence at this point favors the “they’re two people” theory over the “they’re two natures in the same person”—particularly since Dorina has repeatedly demonstrated that Mircea’s fiddling with Dory’s memories didn’t affect hers—but that’s also the answer I’m hoping for. My bias might be affecting my evaluation more than I realize.

None of the other dhampirs mentioned indirectly in the stories give hints of having dual natures. Maybe that’s because most dhampirs survive by one nature “killing” the other, but I’m dubious. (Admittedly, one reason I’m dubious is that Karen Chance has demonstrated a fondness for demonstrating how stereotypes and common knowledge are so often bullshit or at best incomplete.)

The fit where Mircea freaks out because one twin was trying to leave the body _could_ fit in either scenario. It shows both how Dorina usually avoided both of them being awake simultaneously and how Mircea quite possibly exacerbated their difficulties. (When he caught Dorina trying to leave, he’d mistake her for Dory and force her to stay in the body with Dory.)

Theoretically, his actions might’ve prevented an integration that other surviving dhampirs have managed—if the issue is a matter of dual natures—or it was a misunderstanding caused by them actually being two persons sharing a body.

Personally, I’m unsure Mircea was ever entirely human to begin with—a topic for another essay—and what I suspect Mircea and Radu originally were would be quite consistent with a mixup on how many spirits vs. bodies were conceived, or even of there having been a miscarriage of one twin causing them to ultimately share one body.

But then, the way dhampirs _are_ magic could also theoretically cause that, and that brings up the question of where all the other dhampirs _are_. Dory’s even had the thought that they exist, if you know where to look, and there have been multiple mentions in the series of others being known of.

So…where are they? A question for another essay.

Further supporting the possibility that Dorina is her own person is that she has her own sense of humor and personality, distinct and different from Dory’s. This is most obvious in _Dragon’s Claw_ , which also demonstrates that some of others’ freakouts about her might just be failure to get her sense of humor. (For example, see when she told Dory not to kill Pritkin; if she’s joking, that also explains why she seems to get along fine with Marlowe.)

But she’s also demonstrated that she cares for her father and Dory both, not wanting to hurt them. This means that she’d be unlikely to force them to acknowledge her as a person or even correct them directly if Mircea’s made a faulty assumption about her name.

If they’ve been two persons all along and Mircea misunderstood communication difficulties as one killing the other… Well, that means he literally tortured an innocent child for centuries, fracturing his own family. That would be _very_ damaging for him to learn.

Whatever Dorina is, Radu probably understands it better than Mircea, considering he’s lied outright about her to Dory and Mircea. (In _Fury’s Kiss_ , he says he can’t guide the memory-walk because Dorina hasn’t met him, but she came out in _Midnight’s Daughter_ when Dory followed Radu into his hidden room. Dorina outright identifies Radu by name in _Shadow’s Bane_ , while still thinking of Louis-Cesaré and Marlowe by description, so she knows him better than she does them. Radu also seems to only call Dory by her preferred name when Dorina is obviously not present.)

(Radu knowing something Mircea doesn’t would actually fit quite well with the possibility that Mircea was never entirely human. Mircea was quite young when he became a vampire. Both Radu and Vlad had far more time to learn or discover family secrets. Mircea was only about 30 when he built the wall, so that was long before Radu would’ve had any chance to fill him in.)

Speaking as a reader, I do very much hope that Dory and Dorina are ultimately two different people who share a body, because them ultimately being one person with essentially a personality disorder would repeat drama dynamics that are already inherent in other characters. There are dynamics and implications of two persons sharing one body that have not yet been explored, which Dory-Dorina as a duo could delve into.

For example, Dory has Louis-Cesaré, who Dorina doesn’t like in the way Dory does (which probably contributes to his insecurity). What if Dorina herself prefers another, particularly one that Dory doesn’t care for?

Granted, I’m not sure that that Dorina, if she _is_ another person, would be ready for that sort of relationship until after she’s been “free” for a while longer. I think it’s more likely that friendly overtures on her part would be misunderstood by observers as romantic interest, especially if she made a friend willing to help her casually experiment…or possibly had someone ordered to indulge her.

(A consul order could explain why Marlowe was so lenient with her in that basement in _Dragon’s Claw_ , but Dorina’s situation also has enough parallels to his own abusive family background as defined in _Zombie’s Bite_ that he might just be emotionally compromised and perceiving her as analogous to his dead sisters, especially the youngest who he particularly blames himself for failing.)

Anyway, my hope doesn’t make the two- _person_ scenario more likely than the other. As things stand, the books up to _Queen’s Gambit_ have done a remarkably good job balancing details so it _could_ go either way.

* * *

**Regarding Elena:**

I suspect she's Helen of Troy, daughter of Zeus. This would connect and explain a lot of little details, and not just from _Shatter the Earth_.

(It’s been blatant from early in the series that _something_ was fishy about her. Remember in _Death’s Mistress_ , when Mircea says she slapped him and was more vibrant than any of the other women in that culture. That alone indicates she _wasn’t_ from that culture. And then the way Elena stops Cassie’s power and heals her in _Shatter the Earth_ matches what Caedmon could do.)

Elena being inhuman could also explain the scene in _Shadow’s Bane_ where Dorina has drawn an image of her mother that Mircea has never seen before. How could Dorina have done that unless Dorina knew their mother?

Per what Dory and Mircea both know, Dorina having known her mother is literally impossible, yet that image came from somewhere. Where?

In _Fury’s Kiss_ , Mircea admits that some of the memories he wiped were of her mother. How did she have those?

This is also significant in the way Dorina tried to kill her mother’s murderer. If she was given away as young as Dory thinks and Mircea seems to think, _how could she have known who her mother was_?

(This question has bothered me for several years, now.)

There aren’t enough details at this point to know what _really_ happened, though it’s been said outright that Dorina/Dory has been experimented on. The specifics may ultimately never matter, but the details as they stand don’t mesh with the standing story, which still has questions like, “ _Why_ was a demigoddess playing Romanian peasant, to begin with?”

Of course, it’s possible that some of the not-meshing details are authorial accidents, but I expect we’ll eventually have definite answers. Judging from the sample chapters of the upcoming book ( _Queen’s Gambit_ ) and precedent of how Pritkin’s kidnapping turned out, that might not come for another 3 books, but that’s honestly part of the fun, for me.

* * *

What do y'all think?


	4. Was Mircea ever human?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was drafted before the sample chapters were released for _Queen’s Gambit_ and was **not** updated from that release.

The more Karen Chance has released in her series, the more I have wondered if her character Mircea Basarab was entirely human to begin with.

Almost everyone else with…oddities has been established as having ancestry that explains it. Cassie’s a demigod, Pritkin has his the incubus-fey-human ancestry, Caedmon is a demigod, Claire is more than half fey, etc. Even Dorina has the precedent of experimentation (reference _Dragon’s Claw_ ) and inhuman mother (see _Shatter the Earth_ ).

At this point, the only other überpowered person without an established ancestry to explain it is Louis-Cesaré, and _his_ physique, speed, and power resemble the light fey we’ve met.

(On that note, the color vampires’ eyes turn when they power up _may_ be intended as a hint or indicator of their dominant ancestry, but that’s just a possibility I’ve noticed. The evidence is potentially circumstantial.)

One major detail that suggests otherwise is the appearance of the Basarab family magic to Dory/Dorina.(Her own aura is described differently, blue. So is Pritkin’s. They could possibly be cousins on their mother’s sides, though I doubt that’s going to happen.)

Dorina assume(s) it’s because Mircea was cursed, and the Pythia’s change to how Louis-Cesaré became a vampire means there isn’t any other cursed vampire for her to compare that to. However, when Dorina meets an Irin in _Fury’s Kiss_ , she notices that the Irin’s magic looks like her father’s, that the Irin is the only time she’s seen magic that glows like Mircea’s line.

Is that a hint that Mircea was part Irin to begin with, before he became a vampire?

If so, it’s consistent with multiple other details that are potentially but not necessarily suggestive of that fact.

(Even [Karen Chance says](http://www.karenchance.com/news/qa-40-2/) that in _Fury’s Kiss_ , Dorina “was so entranced by the Irin [because] she’d never seen a power signature that strong before”— _not_ because she’d never seen a power signature _like that_ before, but that same scene describes the fey power signature differently.)

When Dory first meets the male Irin in _Fury’s Kiss_ ,the physical description is very similar to the physical description of Mircea. The height and physique are the same. This _could_ be coincidental or even authorial preferences peeking through the narrative, but not necessarily so. The series has even pointed out that Mircea’s size, etc., was extremely unusual for Romania of the time, too.

Irin have been shown to be strong mentalists, so even the family’s magic talent fits.

Both Irin and the Basarabs are shown to be sensual and unusually observant. This itself isn’t telling at all—they’re far from unique—but that might also explain why Mircea can have fulfilling sex without biting his lovers, which seems to be as unusual for vampires.

(If neither Mircea or Louis-Cesaré were entirely human to begin with, that also explains why they were originally cursed rather than Made. The previous European consul left everyone quite averse to mixing magics. See _Masks_.)

The free short story “The Gauntlet” says that the first-made Child usually doesn’t turn out right, so if Tony was actually Mircea’s first, his survival and progression to master vampire is another oddity.

(Also, Mircea might’ve intentionally chosen a jerk with the funds he needed because expected his first attempt to die rather than end up a Child. Tony would’ve eventually learned that detail about first-made children, which probably contributed to the tension between them, as well as Tony’s paranoia and willingness to betray Mircea.)

Another possible evidence is how Mircea, Radu, _and Vlad_ all ended up senior masters. Mircea might’ve shared power with Radu, to help push him forward, but Vlad? How did he level up while in the snare?

Irin are said to be disinterested in others overall. Even the male Irin in _Fury’s Kiss_ was apparently just looking for the missing female. Both those Irin acted contrary to “common knowledge” _specifically_ where Dory/Dorina was concerned. This could be part of the recurring theme that commonly believed stereotypes are often wrong (a theme that’s stated outright in the free short story “The Gauntlet”), or it could be a hint that there’s something strange about her, even insofar as dhampirs are concerned, or maybe the Irin created dhampirs to begin with.

Both Mircea and Dorina gained power insanely quickly. Theoretically, Mircea’s early and extra-fast development _could_ be a side effect of the power boosts he got in _Masks_ and at other points as a baby (some explicitly shown in the series to date, like the fey bones, and some implied by what’s been admitted, like him helping Anthony in the war).

But if Mircea _did_ get his power from those fluke events, that wouldn’t explain Dorina’s power growth. From conversations characters have had _about_ dhampirs, Dorina’s extra-fast development seems to be assumed to just be a dhampir thing, but that conflicts with comments that have slipped out on occasion regarding the dhampirs that Dory’s actually met.

Dorina displayed dual personhood even as a child (e.g. _Shadow’s Bane_ , Dorina saying it’s only bad when they’re both awake), which has not shown up in the tidbits of descriptions of other dhampirs that Dory’s met. Thus, it may actually be unique to her/them. If so, that fits the “two persons, one body” thing, which could reasonably be a side effect of bodies-are-optional, we-are-energy Irin ancestry.

So _if_ Mircea was never entirely human to begin with, the tidbits seem to suggest he was part Irin, and _if_ he and therefore Dory are part Irin, then it increases the likelihood that Dory and Dorina have always been different people.

There’s also the gift Dorina and Dory receive in _Dragon’s Claw_ that means she/they now have some Irin abilities, but which ones? Irin can construct bodies; might that have been included?

And why _did_ the Irin think he could pass abilities to her via dragon’s claw, without ill effect? Possibly because she’s part?

(Of course, the Irin sharing abilities with her could’ve just been incidental from the desperation of needing someone to take out the demon lord and him being unable to do it, so he sacrificed himself to enable her to. And even if Dorina can’t construct a body, if she entered Faerie in spirit form, she might auto-get a temporary body, like Billy Joe did…which theoretically could explain why Caedmon tried so hard to get Dory to come to Faerie, too. Or maybe a variation on Chimera would work.)

Cassie has interestingly been denied any opportunity to confirm or deny if Dorina is a spirit in herself, which itself _could_ be connected.

Marlowe’s question in _Shadow’s Bane_ about why someone would _choose_ to live as two persons in one body is potentially relevant, too. Dory and Dorina didn’t choose their condition, instead having been that way from childhood (and possibly from birth, though that’s not yet confirmed). The duality could come from her mother, who has been revealed to be nonhuman—but why would a woman who has the traits of a demigod have been playing Romanian peasant? Maybe she was _seeking_ the Basarabs? If so, why?

Altogether, Mircea’s appearance, magic, development, family, and history are all extremely improbable for a human but could reasonably result if he has some nonhuman ancestry. The closest fit I’ve noticed in series is Irin.


End file.
